Visitors can be earthquake tourists by day and delve into old paranormal activity by night. It was a sign that Christchurch is returning to normal, Duggan agreed.

Each nightly tour will include three yarns, with bus visits to sites important to the stories. One story concerns the 1870 murder of a servant girl. The tour will visit the house where she died and then Barbadoes St Cemetery, where she was buried and where something unusual happened, Duggan said.

The stories were selected because they wound up with "sightings of ghosts or very weird things happening", she said. Duggan and business partner Kevin Arthurs are writing scripts for more than three yarns and will swap them over from time to time. This would encourage Canterbury residents to take the tour more than once. Special events, such as hen nights, were possible.

Tickets will be $45 a head and the tours will last about two hours. Customers will be encouraged to dress fancy. None of the stories concern the recent earthquakes as it's too soon and she was unaware of any paranormal activity concerning quake victims.

"There's not a lot going on for tourists at night," Duggan said. The tours would get tourists out of their hotels and socialising.

She arrived from the North Island in November 2013 and works as a business analyst by day. "I did the business plan and the numbers stacked up," she said. She came to the city because it was "full of opportunity".

The pair hope to start the tours on the first Saturday of September. Book at hebejebetours.co.nz

OPEN SOURCE

Open Source is a weekly series featuring innovative, interesting ideas emerging within the city and region. If you want to share an idea, email will.harvie@press.co.nz